Mega Sleepover 2

by Rose Impey

  I looked at Rosie, who isn’t interested in football either, and we rolled our eyes to the ceiling. But then she kept on giving me funny looks until I noticed what she was looking at – the plate with the two cakes. It was still sitting there on the arm of the sofa. While everyone was making a fuss, I picked it up and slipped into the kitchen and tipped them both into the bin.

  When I came back Kenny’s dad was saying again, “Why do things like this always have to happen when I’m on call?”

  “I don’t see what difference that makes,” said her mum.

  “Well, I could have rung Herman. He might have done a quick repair for me. He owes me a favour.” Herman was a good friend of Kenny’s dad’s, as well as being his dentist.

  “Oh, Jim, why don’t you ring him? It’s worth a try.”

  So, even though it was Saturday teatime, the dentist told him to come right over. Kenny’s dad got his coat on and hunted for his car keys. We were just beginning to relax and think we’d got away with it, when he came back in and said, “I’d like to know what you girls put in those cakes. It felt like biting on a bullet.”

  Kenny looked as if she might burst, she was so red, but her mum said, “Now, Jim, don’t go blaming the girls. There was nothing wrong with my cake; it was delicious. You know what your teeth are like: if there’s one seed left in a currant you’ll be the one to find it. You’ve had that filling replaced twice before.”

  “All the same I might just take it along as evidence,” he said, looking round for it.

  “Oh, get off with you,” said her mum. And lucky for us he did.

  It was a good job I’d disposed of the evidence, because Monster-face was watching us all, as if she suspected something was going on. So, to throw her off the scent, we sat down and scoffed the rest of the cakes. “Mmmm, they’re so light,” I said.

  “And soft,” agreed Kenny.

  “They melt in your mouth,” said Rosie.

  “Scrummy,” said Lyndz. “Sure you don’t want the last one?” she asked Molly.

  Molly screwed up her nose as an answer. She still hadn’t touched her drink either.

  “You don’t know what you’re missing,” I said, finishing the last one.

  “You’d think we were trying to poison you,” said Kenny. And after that we couldn’t keep our faces straight. We just raced off upstairs to Kenny’s bedroom and collapsed on her bed. But there was no chance to talk about anything, because guess who followed us!

  Molly stood in the doorway, glaring at us. “Remember, half of this room is mine and you’re not to touch anything.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you already told us fifty times before,” said Kenny and she got up and closed the door on her. For a change Molly didn’t open it and start up again.

  We were dying to talk about what had happened, but we knew she’d be standing outside ear-wigging. So Kenny got up and put on her cassette player really loud and we huddled together on her bed and whispered.

  “That was a lucky escape,” I said. “It’s a good job Rosie spotted the cakes.”

  “And you got rid of the evidence,” said Rosie.

  “I feel really bad about my dad,” said Kenny.

  Lyndz said, “Yeah, so do I.” In fact we all did. None of us liked going to the dentist.

  “And we still haven’t got our revenge on you-know-who.” Kenny pointed to the door.

  Somehow making an apple pie bed in the morning seemed a pathetic idea. But later on we came up with a much better one. I’ll tell you how it happened.

  About half-past six Kenny’s mum called us down for tea. She’d made us vegetable lasagne which was delicious. Fortunately Molly the Monster didn’t eat with us, because she’d taken herself off to bed. She said she felt ill. Well, she couldn’t blame it on our cakes because she hadn’t touched them or her orange juice. She didn’t really look ill. Kenny said it was just an excuse to have their mum running up and downstairs after her.

  Emma and her friend Hayley were going to cook for themselves later on. They were making chicken masala, which I didn’t fancy in the least, but then I’m a vegetarian, but the afters, hot fudge bananas, looked scrummy. They said they might save us some, if we kept out of their way.

  While we were still eating there was a phone call from Kenny’s dad to say he’d got his tooth fixed and he was going to stay a bit longer and have a cup of coffee with Herman. Then about half an hour later there was another call to say he’d been bleeped so he was going on now to see a patient and he’d be home later.

  After we’d finished eating we carried the dishes through to the kitchen. Kenny’s mum loaded them into the dishwasher and then sent us through to the lounge because Emma and Hayley were already starting their cooking and it isn’t a very big kitchen.

  Over the back of a chair in the lounge was one of the hairdressing gowns Kenny’s mum uses, so I just threw it over my head and crept up behind Fliss, pretending to be a ghost, and gave her the fright of her life. And that was how we got the idea.

  “That’s it, that’s it,” Kenny started to squeal. Then she lowered her voice. “Come on, let’s go upstairs.” We all scooted up to her room where she outlined her plan. It was ace. We were so excited we were hopping around the bedroom rubbing our hands.

  Suddenly we heard the phone ring. It was Kenny’s dad again. This definitely wasn’t his day. Now his car had broken down. He’d already been to see his patient, but he was stuck and couldn’t get home. Kenny’s mum came into the bedroom looking really flustered.

  “Listen, girls, I’m going to have to go and pick up Kenny’s dad. Do you think you’ll be OK with Emma and Hayley, while I’m gone?”

  “Course we will,” said Kenny. Emma often babysits for her and Molly.

  “Well, I don’t like leaving you all with Emma, and I wouldn’t normally do it, but today hasn’t exactly been a normal day. I won’t be gone long.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Kenny. It was good news for us. Now we’d be able to creep in and scare Molly more easily, with both her parents out of the way. “Hang loose, Mother Goose,” she said. “In fact, if you like we’ll get ready for bed now.”

  That was a bit of a mistake because it made her mum suspicious. After all it was still only eight o’clock. “You’re not going to make a lot of noise, are you, Laura, because Molly isn’t very well and she’s trying to rest.”

  “She looked all right to me,” said Kenny. “She’s faking, you know. It’s just to get attention. You shouldn’t give in to her.”

  Kenny’s mum smiled and said, “Just try not to make too much noise and disturb her, all right?”

  Kenny pulled a face, but nodded. It was perfect – her mum and dad would be out of the house; Emma and Hayley were busy downstairs in the kitchen; Molly was already in bed. We waited, as quiet as mice, in Kenny’s room until we heard her mum’s car start up and move off down the road.

  “OK, let’s get going,” said Kenny.

  “Who’s going to do it?” I said. Everybody looked at me as if I’d asked a really stupid question. “Why me?”

  “Because you’re the biggest,” said Kenny.

  “So?”

  “You look the most like a fully grown ghost,” Rosie agreed.

  “What’s a fully grown ghost when it’s at home?” I said.

  “You know what she means,” said Fliss.

  I didn’t, but there was no point arguing because I was outvoted, four to one. I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea any more, but the others were all for it. It was OK for them; they didn’t have to do it.

  I slipped the hairdressing gown over my head. Then Kenny poked about under her bed and found me a set of those long plastic finger nails. I put my hands under the gown and then Kenny fitted them onto the ends of my fingers. They looked really drastic.

  The trouble started when we lifted the gown up to cover my face, I couldn’t see a thing. As soon as I tried to move I walked into Kenny’s bed.

  “Ow! This is useless. I’ll probably fall down
stairs and break my neck,” I yelled.

  “Shhh!” said Kenny. “She’ll hear you. Wait a minute. Take it off and I’ll cut two eye holes in it.”

  Well, that was a real performance because the first time she cut them too close together and I still couldn’t see a thing, so she had to cut a second set.

  “Won’t your mum hit the roof, when she sees what you’ve done?” said Fliss.

  “She’s got lots of these gowns. I’ll get rid of this one. She’ll never miss it.”

  At last we’d got two eye holes that I could just about see through. And then I had a little practice walking round the room in the dark. Kenny turned her light out and pulled back the curtains so a bit of light from the street lamps came through. The others said I looked dead creepy and I started to make sort of ghostly noises, until Fliss really started to freak.

  “OK, that’s enough practising,” said Kenny. “Let’s do it.”

  “Do what?” I said from under the cape. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Go in there and give her the scare of her life.”

  “What if I wake her up?”

  “You’ll have to wake her up or there’s no point doing it,” said Kenny.

  “But what if she jumps out of bed and catches me?”

  “As soon as she’s awake you’ll have to leg it back to my room. Now, come on.”

  Kenny opened her bedroom door and listened. There was no sound from downstairs. The kitchen door was closed, so she pushed me forwards along the landing as far as Emma’s bedroom door. It was closed too and I hadn’t got a hand free, what with the gown and the finger nails, so Kenny bobbed in front of me, turned the door handle and opened the door. It made a loud creaking noise and I could hear Fliss gasp. I was ready to forget the whole thing too, but Kenny gave me another push and I ended up in the room.

  It took ages for my eyes to get used to the dark and I walked into the end of the camp bed, trying to make out where Molly was. Fortunately she wasn’t in it. She was in Emma’s bed. I shuffled over to her and stood looking down on her and then I didn’t know what to do next.

  I knew the others were outside the room listening, so I thought about doing a few ghostly moans, but I was frightened of waking Molly up in case she caught me before I had a chance to scarper. Kenny had said just blow on her, but how could I do that with this rotten cape over my face. So, instead, I waved my hands about a bit to make a draught. I felt really stupid. And scared.

  Suddenly something terrible happened. Molly’s eyes opened and she stared right at me. I nearly died. I couldn’t move. I was just glued to the spot. I felt as if I would never move again, until she screamed. I soon moved then.

  She just screamed and screamed and screamed. It was deafening. I don’t remember how I got along the landing. I ran straight into the others who were still crowding round outside the door. The next moment we’d fallen into Kenny’s room, pushed the door shut and collapsed in a heap on Kenny’s bed, stuffing our hands in our mouths so that we wouldn’t give ourselves away.

  “Quick, Frankie, quick,” said Rosie. “Get that off.”

  It’s a good job she said that because we’d just ripped the gown off and collected up the finger nails which shot all over the floor, and stuffed them under Kenny’s pillow, when Emma and Hayley crashed into the room.

  “Molly says someone just broke into her room. Are you all OK? Did you hear anything? You’d better come and help us look.” Then they raced out again.

  We all looked at each other and tried to arrange our faces so they didn’t give us away and followed them out onto the landing. Molly was still screaming her head off.

  “It’s all right, Molly,” said Emma, trying to calm her down. “You can stop making that terrible noise. It sounds as if you’re being murdered.”

  “I could have been,” she yelled.

  “Kenny, are you sure you didn’t hear anything?” Emma asked again.

  “Not a thing,” said Kenny. “We were just fooling about in my room. We didn’t hear a sound, except for Monster-face screaming her head off.”

  “So would you if someone had been standing over your bed. Have you looked? He might still be in the house.”

  We offered to search the house. We all ran up and downstairs like mad things, opening doors then banging them closed again. We raced into the kitchen and it was a good job we did because the chicken masala was burning so we yelled up to tell them and Hayley rushed down to turn it off.

  Emma was still trying to calm Molly down and get some sense out of her but Molly wouldn’t stop yelling, “I want my mum! I want my dad!” She was really enjoying herself. She was putting on a good act, but I could tell she wasn’t really scared. I didn’t like the way she kept looking at us. Somehow I was sure she knew it was me.

  “Look,” said Emma, “just stop shouting. Mum and Dad’ll be home any time. They’ll sort it out.” You could tell she didn’t know what to do for the best.

  “It’ll be too late by then,” Molly insisted. “He’ll have got away. You’ve got to ring the police.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” said Kenny. “We can’t ring the police. Anyway, we’ve looked. There’s no one here. You probably dreamt it.”

  “I didn’t dream it. He was right here, standing over me. He was six feet tall and he had horrible claws. He’d probably have clawed my eyes out if I hadn’t woken up.”

  “She just dreamt it,” Kenny told Emma. “Or made it up. She’s always making things up. You know what she’s like.”

  Emma certainly knew what Molly was like, but she could see something funny was going on. And any minute now we could all see Kenny and Molly were going to get into one of their screaming matches, so Emma said, “Kenny go away and leave this to me. Take the others back to your bedroom. Now!”

  “But she’s just being stupid and making it all up,” Kenny started again.

  “I am not,” Molly screamed.

  “Go! Now!” said Emma pointing to the door.

  Kenny gave Molly a last nasty look and then we all trooped back to her bedroom. We didn’t close the door because we wanted to try and hear what was going on. But Emma closed hers so, however much we strained our ears, we couldn’t hear a sound.

  We sat on Kenny’s bedroom floor trying to enjoy our revenge.

  “Did you see her face?” hissed Kenny.

  “It was awesome,” said Lyndz.

  “She sounded like a banshee,” said Rosie.

  “He was six feet tall with horrible claws,” I said, mimicking Molly’s voice.

  We were all giggling and hugging ourselves, but we couldn’t really keep it up for long, because we couldn’t help wondering what Molly was telling Emma.

  “What do you think’s going on?” said Fliss. She looked really scared. I couldn’t see why because I was the one who was going to get into trouble if anybody did.

  “Oh, don’t worry about it,” said Kenny. “Emma’ll calm her down. She won’t want mum to know there’s been trouble or she won’t get paid for looking after us.”

  Oh well, we thought, if Kenny isn’t worried, there’s no reason for the rest of us to be. But a couple of minutes later we had plenty to be worried about.

  Emma came in and said she’d phoned the police and they were sending someone round straight away. I thought Kenny was going into orbit.

  “What! Why! What do you mean? Police? You didn’t need to ring the police.”

  “Well,” said Emma, “Molly says there was definitely someone in her room so there must have been a prowler or something. Anyway, don’t you worry, the police’ll sort it out. They should be round any minute.”

  Kenny almost grabbed hold of Emma. “Mum and Dad’ll go mad you know. You should have waited for them to come back. You know what Molly’s like; she makes things up all the time. They’ll be so mad when they find out.”

  But Emma stayed dead cool. “No, I’m sure they’d have done the same. Anyway you needn’t worry about it,” she said as she left the room. “Although,”
she turned and added, “they’ll probably want a statement from each of you.”

  “A statement?” shrieked Fliss. “But I didn’t see anything. It was nothing to do with me. It wasn’t my idea. I didn’t do anything.”

  That’s just like Fliss when she gets in a flap. I could have murdered her. Kenny looked as if she could too.

  “Nobody suggested you’d done anything, Fliss,” said Emma, looking straight at me. “If you didn’t hear a sound that’s what you’ll need to say to the inspector.”

  “Inspector!” said Kenny.

  “Well, whoever they send,” said Emma smiling. “I’m going to get on with my meal until they come.”

  After she went out we all sat there too shocked to speak. We were all white, in fact we looked like a gang of ghosts. Now we were in deep trouble.

  “You’re going to have to go and tell them the truth,” said Fliss.

  “No way,” said Kenny.

  “I think Molly knows anyway,” I said. The others looked at me. “I’ve just got this feeling. I think she could tell it was me.”

  “What? So you mean she’s putting it all on just to get us into trouble.”

  I nodded. “I think so.”

  “I still think you’d better tell Emma,” said Fliss. “So she can ring the police and tell them not to come.”

  Lyndz nodded. “I agree with Fliss. Your mum and dad’ll go mad if they come home and find the police here.”

  “They’re going to go mad anyway,” said Kenny. “Emma’s bound to tell them and I’ll be grounded for the rest of my life, or longer. And just coming up for Christmas as well. I’ll probably get no presents, no Christmas dinner, no TV for the whole week.” We were all feeling sorry for Kenny, but we were feeling sorry for ourselves too.

  “Oh, please, Kenny, go and tell Emma,” Fliss begged her. “Before they come.”

  I couldn’t decide what was best. I sort of agreed with Fliss. Better make a clean breast of it before her parents came back. And yet I knew how much Kenny would hate having to own up and let Molly think she’d won. But time was running out. They could be here any moment. We were just waiting for the doorbell to ring. Kenny sat there and wouldn’t speak. She looked as if she’d turned to stone or something.